Multimedia Photojournalist

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Ah, Bloggers…We Meet Again

I’ve found myself thinking this a lot lately. Why, you might ask? In short, I’ve transitioned (or, rather, I’m still transitioning) from student life to work-to-pay-multiple-bills life.

While I’ve always had my own bills, I feel like there’s a lot of other components associated with becoming a successful adult that I’m still trying to juggle.

I spent four years on campus, but, unfortunately, I had some online courses to finish up that added another year to my degree. No matter! I still earned my bachelor of journalism (specifically, convergence photojournalism) and that became the proudest moment of my life. [Side note: it would help to know I’m a first generation college graduate who had extreme anxiety about even applying to colleges.]

Anyway, since leaving campus, I moved to Ohio and accepted a position at Target while I was still finishing my degree. It’s been two years since that point, I’ve received and framed my degree annnnd I’m still working at Target. Obviously, I’m trying to find a different position (one where I can actually use my degree) but I’ve hit a few snags along the way, which make it seem like becoming an adult should be left to gods or superheros. Lol.

The first of those snags was updating my resume after realizing (and accepting that the fact that) the most recent experience I’ve had in the field was in 2014. I know no one finds utter joy in revamping their resume, (how could you with all the stress?) but I had a difficult time with this. Why? If I’m being honest with myself, it’s because of the importance I put in this process. My reasoning is, if you want a shot at making enough money to pay your bills and not live paycheck to paycheck, you’ve got to look really, really good on paper. You’ve got to land that interview and excel past all the other applicants. And this is all assuming that you have recent experience. So, I had to dig deep into the work I have been able to be a part of and learn from and work with that to make my resume more noticeable.

Another snag, and probably the more stressful one, was finding out that what I was using as my professional portfolio is now gone as of a few months ago. *Poof* Allow me to reiterate. In school, I took a few coding and web design classes. I had coded an entire website from scratch and uploaded my work to it as it was complete. My portfolio 100% ready for job applications and everything was hunky dory. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Sure, until I fess up to the fact that it was on my school’s server with no extra copies on my computer or external hard drive. Well, when you graduate, they have to get rid of your information from their server sometime, right? I felt like an anvil had landed on me when I went to go look at my work and it was gone. So, I was forced to create a new portfolio. However, the silver lining to that is now I have a chance to create a better portfolio— one that’s more suited to the type of work that I want to do. And this blog is going to help me accomplish that!

My goal is to have a cohesive, well-maintained blog for once (as opposed to one that’s only on a certain subject for six months). Lol. Will you join me on this journey into adulthood and, more importantly, photography?